Islamispeace, your posts do contain elements of truth, but alas, the truth is hidden by half truths, outright lies, and irrational conclusions.

For example, you condemn Israel for the (supposedly) "crippling blockade" of Gaza. But doesn't Egypt also share a border with Gaza? Isn't Egypt, too, guilty of blockading Gaza? Doesn't every one of the claims you make against Israel (whether true or false) also apply to Egypt? Why do you condemn Israel but not Egypt?

If there are particular topics you wish to discuss (for example, Gaza), then I suggest you open new threads dedicated to those topics, and depending on how rational your points are, I'll consider making reply.

You continue to try to change the subject whenever you are refuted. You talk about "rationality" yet your posts reeks of irrationality.

But since I am not like you, I don't avoid responding to every point you raise. You asked about Egypt. You are absolutely right that the Egyptian government is just as guilty for the suffering in the Gaza Strip. But, most Egyptians support lifting the Egyptian blockade. The hypocrites in the government and the military want to preserve the peace treaty with Israel. They are only protecting their own personal interests, and yes, they are just as guilty as Israel.

Why on earth would we need to open a new thread on Gaza? The situation in Gaza is a part of the conflict going back to 1948. That is the issue of this thread, so why would need to open a new thread?

Now, answer my questions that you keep avoiding like the plague.

Say: "Truly, my prayer and my service of sacrifice, my life and my death, are (all) for Allah, the Cherisher of the Worlds. (Surat al-Anaam: 162)

Show me one person in this world who has NOT suffered some sort of loss?

Greetings islamispeace,

That is my point. There are a great many people who have suffered serious losses in life... loss of everything, but they choose, and chose, not to dwell on what was lost and to choose instead life and rebuilding with what they still have.

We all must choose to keep going forward in life despite our losses.I do not think I am unique at all. I think I learned a hard lesson what it is to not wallow in the pain of the past and to choose instead to create joy for the future.

Originally posted by islamispeace

In fact, whenever I feel like things are not going right in my life, I always remind myself that I have no right to complain. People living in Africa, Asia and other places have it much worse, and yet they are enduring, so why can't I?

Me too. So we have that in common. In fact I count my blessings every day. What may seem tiny to most, is very large to me. God has allowed to be taken away, but God has also given, and I know that I am blessed.

I do not see where I have been 'refuted'.Just because someone disagrees with me, does not make them right. They have expressed their opinion on the matter.

Originally posted by islamispeace

You still have not answered my question: how exactly are the Palestinians supposed to "recover"? Any bright ideas? It's easy to say stuff. It's quite another to say something that will make a difference.

I don't have the answers, but I do know that those outside of the conflict, who insist on continuing the conflict, and fueling the
conflict, are certainly not helping the people having to live with the
conflict.

I know it would be better for the leaders there to make peace with the past, as I am fairly certain the people there would like to see them do. I am sure the people just want to get on with life and have a life. It is those outside that make life inside impossible, and they need to stop.

Salaam and blessings to you,Caringheart

Let us seek Truth together
Blessed be God forever
"I believe in Jesus as I believe in the sun... not because I see it, but because by it, I see everything else.: - C.S.Lewis

About 45 percent of children in
Gaza have iron deficiency from a lack of fruit and vegetables, and 18
percent have stunted growth."

Greetings islamispeace,

I have been doing some reading so as not to repeat the facts I know, incorrectly, because the greenhouses immediately came to my mind. The following are from articles I have been reading(many sources):

In 2005, as Israel withdrew from Gaza and forcibly removed the Jewish residents of the area, a group of Jewish American donors came together to ensure that the famed Israeli greenhouses that produced $200 million of produce per year would not go to waste. The greenhouses were purchased for $14 million – much of it provided by the Gates Foundation - and turned over to Gaza Arabs.

But within hours of the withdrawal, many of the buildings had been damaged beyond repair. Terrorists and looters stripped them of their piping and electronic equipment and tore down their walls. Some greenhouses remained, several of which were destroyed in a second round of looting in 2006.

(An article from 2010)

Now Gaza Arabs are going to get a second chance to try to recreate the thriving greenhouses of Gush Katif. The United States Agency for International Development is to sponsor a project termed Family Agricultural Greenhouses, which will construct three new greenhouses.

USAID hopes the three greenhouses will support 900 families in the Hamas-run Gaza region.

"...the rise of the PA and later of Hamas has created a situation in which rival terrorist groups battle for control at the expense of civilians, and ultimately destroy efforts to build local industry."

"As long as the atmosphere in Gaza is one of hostility, the rivalry between local Arab groups will make any attempts to build a better future fruitless, "

a bloc of 17 Israeli settlements of Jewish persons, in the southern Gaza strip. In August 2005, the Israeli army moved the 8,600 residents of Gush Katif to Israel. They were evicted from the area and their homes demolished as part of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan from the Gaza Strip portion of the Palestinian Territories.(my own personal note here... why were the homes demolished instead of leaving them for others to inhabit... seems mean spirited and spiteful... not peaceful at all.)

Here's some more:

For the former Jewish settlers, who began coming here in the 1970s, the loss of their livelihoods and homes when the Israeli Army removed them remains a source of trauma. The way they mourn and remember their loss bears at times a striking resemblance to the way Palestinian refugees mourn theirs.

Out the window and across the field, Gadid’s former synagogue could be seen, a six-sided structure dear to the hearts of many former settlers. Today it is a mosque.

Other sources, other reading:

James Wolfensohn, a former president of the World Bank who served as international representative to the conflict at the time of the handover, was the one who raised the $14 million for the greenhouses. He called friends like Bill Gates. Mortimer B. Zuckerman, the publisher of The Daily News, threw in a bit of his own, and in a few weeks he had the money.

“There was nothing but hope then,” Mr. Wolfensohn said when reached by telephone in London. “We thought about tourism and hotels and turning Gaza into the Arab Riviera.”

But between the looting, security delays and corruption of border guards — both Israeli and Palestinian, he noted — and then after Israel’s three-week offensive in 2008-9 and the naval blockade, the economy fell apart.

Told of the newly revived farmlands, he was delighted.

“It saddened me that something I thought was a really good contribution had gone sour,” he said. “I thought if people were vested in the economics of their activities and there was interdependence between Israelis and Palestinians, the risk of violence would be greatly reduced. The area would flourish. But the problem with the Middle East is that it is not always rational.”

The most recent news I could find for the greenhouses and farm industry in Gaza was as old as 2011.

GAZA — Hundreds of acres of watermelons, orange saplings and grapevines stretch in orderly rows out to the horizon. Irrigation hoses run along the sand, dripping quietly. Apple trees are starting to blossom nearby. Avocados and mangoes are on their way.

Gaza, cut off by Israel and Egypt for the past four years and heavily dependent on food aid, is expanding an enormous state-run farm aimed at gaining partial food independence. Most striking is that the project sits in the center of the coastal strip on the sites of the former Israeli settlements whose looted greenhouses and ruined fields became a symbol of all that had turned sour in the Israeli withdrawal six years ago.

Israel pulled out its 9,000 settlers and all of its soldiers from Gaza in 2005. The settlers’ high-tech greenhouses, which were bought for the Palestinians with $14 million in donations, were left unguarded and within days were stripped of computer equipment, irrigation pipes, water pumps and plastic sheeting.

Planting did resume, but after an attack on the border, Israel imposed security procedures on exiting trucks that left fresh produce baking in the sun, rendering it worthless. The greenhouse areas were abandoned and lay fallow, a symbol of hopelessness and hostility.

But in the past couple of years, as Gaza — ruled by the Islamist group Hamas — has struggled with its isolation and economic decline, the settlement areas have been reborn.

Renamed Al Muhararat — meaning the liberated lands — they make up 30 percent of the coastal strip’s land area. The farms on part of them, which are expanding every year, provide jobs for 500 people, as well as fruits and vegetables for large segments of Gaza’s 1.6 million inhabitants.

In food shops and market stalls across Gaza today, most of the onions, melons and grapes come from here. Last month alone, 100 tons of grapes and 23,000 tons of watermelons were produced. The greenhouses remain mostly stripped and unused, but the land under them is productive.“We are making ourselves free of Israel economically and are on our way to food security,” Abdel Qader al-Astal, the director of the project, said in his office in what used to be the Israeli settlement of Gadid, renamed Al Yarmouk.

reepicheep makes good points... why isn't Egypt helping the residents of Gaza strip to build up their communities?

I can not, and will not, say that everything done on the Israeli side is, or has been, correct,but I will say that there is much that can, and could, be done on the other side of things to move forward and make life better for the people of the Gaza strip... and it seems, it some ways it has, and things are moving forward... albeit slowly.

Originally posted by islamispeace

The other example of Israel's continuing criminal practices is the destruction of Bedouin homes. That also does not seem to bother you. Settler violence against Palestinian farmers and the Israeli government's refusal to stop it does not seem to bother you.

This does bother me, very much.

asalaam,Caringheart

Edited by Caringheart - 01 March 2014 at 1:45pm

Let us seek Truth together
Blessed be God forever
"I believe in Jesus as I believe in the sun... not because I see it, but because by it, I see everything else.: - C.S.Lewis

Islamispeace wrote: answer my questions that you keep avoiding like the plague.

I don't think you have thus far asked a rational question which requires a response. So, try again.

Compose a clear, rational, understandable question, and I promise to reply.

You continue to avoid answering my questions to you by making up excuses. What you don't realize is that your refusal to answer my questions is an answer in itself! I know why you are making excuses and not providing any answers. It is because you are a two-faced hypocrite. I asked you some simple questions. For example, I asked you if your congregation has sent any aid to the Palestinians whatsoever. How much more "clear and rational" can I be? You were boasting how your congregation sent sweaters to Syria. But what about Palestine?

Say: "Truly, my prayer and my service of sacrifice, my life and my death, are (all) for Allah, the Cherisher of the Worlds. (Surat al-Anaam: 162)

People are aware of what's being done to Christians in Syria?Ar-RaqqahThey have also been pushed out and their lands and property taken.

Yes, Syria is a mess right now and many people are suffering, including the Christians. The war has killed 150,000 people and Assad's thugs as well as Al-Qaeda's thugs are making life miserable for people there.

How does this change the fact that Israel has made life miserable for the Palestinians for over 60 years? Of course, it doesn't change anything. I don't make excuses for the crimes of so-called "Muslims" like Al-Qaeda fanatics, yet many Christians make excuses for Israel.

The petition's promoter, a Holocaust survivior, wants a French railroad company to pay reparations to Holocaust survivors for collaborating with the Nazis. Of course, I signed the petition. It's the right thing to do. But I wonder how you feel about this? After all, isn't the person who started this petition living in the past? Shouldn't he forget what happened in the past and just move on? Shouldn't he and other Holocaust survivors just "recover"?

Say: "Truly, my prayer and my service of sacrifice, my life and my death, are (all) for Allah, the Cherisher of the Worlds. (Surat al-Anaam: 162)

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